


The Stuff of Which Great Men’s Mothers Are Made

by LuckyDragon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Artist Steve Rogers, BAMF Sarah Rogers, Beta Bucky Barnes, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Irish Sarah Rogers, Irish Steve Rogers, M/M, Mating Bites, Multi, Other, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Terminal Illnesses, irish bucky barnes, mating calls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 02:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19098133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDragon/pseuds/LuckyDragon
Summary: Sarah Rogers thought she would be able to enjoy a rare evening off work by having a peaceful dinner, but two hard-headed, hot-tempered teenagers soon interrupt her plans. She tries to sort them out as best she can.After all, although she gave birth to only one of them, she sees both as her sons.





	1. Chapter 1

_Brooklyn, 1936, May_

 

When the staff manager made a rare error and double-booked two nurses for the second shift, Sarah was sent home early. She wanted to object (she needed every red cent she could get), but nurses who talked back to the staff manager soon had hardly any hours to speak of.

So Sarah put her sweater over her white uniform and walked home, hardly knowing what to do with herself. It was only four in the afternoon. Her son wouldn’t even be home from his part-time job at the grocer yet...which, she suddenly realized, would give her time to make a quick dinner. She and Steven could sit down and eat together for the first time in months.

With a lightness in her previously heavy steps, Sarah’s feet carried her to the butcher shop for a package of chipped beef. The shop owner, a kindly senior alpha, knew Sarah’s situation as a single omega parent, and he always put a little extra in even though she never bought anything expensive. She thanked him sincerely, and he waved it off with a smile and a pleased rumble in his chest.

Sarah arrived home, set the paper package of meat on the kitchen counter, and went to change out of her uniform. As she took down her tightly coiled blonde braids, she paused in front of the mirror. Pushing the hair over her left ear out of the way, she admired, for a moment, the silvery impression of teeth peeking just below her hairline. Her mating mark. It was the second most tangible thing her alpha, the love of her life, had left behind when he died. Her foremost keepsake was their son, Steven, her little alpha.

Sarah pressed her fingertips to her lips and brushed her fingers against her mark. And, as she always did, she put away her grief in the reserved corner of her heart where she kept it. Then she donned her apron and got to work.

She rinsed the excessive salt off the dried meat — too much salt guaranteed Steven a night suffering from peptic esophagitis. Then she mixed the ingredients for the cream sauce to start it boiling. A short time later, after she had added the meat and finished heating it, Sarah heard raised voices approaching the apartment.

Soon she could identify the voices, though not the words. The emotional growls, however, made the situation quite clear. Sarah sighed. “What are those two fighting about now?” she wondered as she wiped her hands on a towel. She turned off the stove and covered the pot to keep dinner warm.

A key rattled in the lock. Sarah was just about to step out of the kitchen when the door opened, and the first words she heard froze her in place.

“— make you understand, Buck. Bonding with me’s about the worst idea you’ve ever had, and it ain’t happening.”

Sarah felt her eyes go wide, and she put her hand over her mouth to stop the squeak that wanted to escape. Bonding? They were talking about bonding after all? James had come to her in the winter (after Steven’s latest bout of pneumonia) and had asked with all politeness and courtesy whether she’d have any problem with it if he started displaying for Steven, if they established a pairbond. Despite a half-moment’s hesitation over their tender age, she’d agreed at the time, fighting back happy tears at the knowledge of how well her boy would be loved, but then...then weeks and months had passed, and she’d heard nothing more. So Sarah had assumed that James had changed his mind.

She should have known better. James wasn’t the type to waffle, not any more than Steven was.

Sarah clutched the countertop, hidden from their sight around the divide from the living room to the kitchen. Should she come out? She hesitated, torn.

The door shut with a loud _clunk,_ and Sarah could just picture the scowl on James’s face. “And yet, I haven’t heard you say, not one time, that you don’t _want_ to bond with me.”

“Fine then, fine!” her son said with as much alpha growl as his thin chest could muster. “I don’t want to bond with you. There, can we let it drop already?”

“Just ’cause you wanna be done talking doesn’t mean I’ve run out of things to say, so just listen up. It’s always been you and me against the world, and it’s always gonna be, so I need you to take those dumb thoughts about dames and charity and, well, _whatever,_ and you shake them out of your rattlin’ skull already!”

“It ain’t that simple, so shut yer mouth! I’m not gonna be any part of being a burden to you, got it?”

“Since when have you been a burden, huh?” Bucky demanded hotly. Even from her spot hidden around the corner in the kitchen, Sarah was starting to pick up on the aggressive scents both young men were putting out. “I’ve never once thought that. Never gonna, either. All that is just in your head.”

“It’s reality, Buck, the real world. Bad lungs, bad heart, bad ears, bad spine, bad everything, I got it. It’s not what I want, but it’s what I got, and I don’t need you to take care of me!”

“So what, then? What would it fuckin’ take, huh? What if you suddenly had all of that fixed, and what if you were suddenly Mr. Perfect Alpha? And, and, and filthy rich, to boot, with betas and omegas fallin’ all over themselves to display for you. What then? Would _I_ be a burden to _you?_ ”

“For shit’s sake, that’s not what this is about!”

Sarah heard the scrape of a chair being shoved, and another wheezing growl from Steven. Much more of this, and he’d end up having an episode. Sarah steeled herself and stepped around the corner to lean against the wall. Two pairs of blue eyes — one pair sky blue and identical to her own, the other pair like a heavy storm cloud — turned to her in almost comical shock, like in the films.

“I think I’ve told you young men that if you’re going to tussle, I expect you to do it outside.”

Steven’s eyes flickered between her and James. “Ma? I didn’t know you were home.”

Sarah took a deep breath. Now that she’d stepped out of the kitchen, she could tell how heavily they’d been broadcasting their scents. She wrinkled her nose. “Of course you didn’t. You’ve been too busy growling and stinking up my home. If you’d kept a level head, you’d have been able to smell dinner.” She went to the window by the kitchen and opened it — despite the spring chill, they needed the fresh air.

“Sorry, ma’am,” James said at the same time her son said, “I’ll clean the room, ma.”

She turned back to them and gave them her best motherly stare. And as they stood there in her living room, both of them stiff and angry and fighting down their growls and anger, it struck her suddenly how, at the ages of nineteen and seventeen, they both looked so young and so grown up at the same time. She could see, simultaneously, the boys they’d been and also the adults they were gradually becoming. She also saw how much they still had left to learn.

Sarah took a deep, calming breath and held out an arm toward James as she walked toward him. “Come on, I think that’s enough for today.” She put her hand on James’s shoulder to steer him toward the door.

James frowned and opened his mouth, and Steven protested, “But —”

“No! Just let it rest now, and you two can sort it out later,” Sarah said with a growl in her voice to let them know how serious she was. “I want to have a word with James. Steven, have a seat.” She nodded meaningfully to the wooden dining chair.

Steven sat, and Sarah walked James out to the landing and shut the door behind her. Standing close to him, she had to look up to meet his eyes.

James angled his head down and to the side submissively, making all the appropriate gestures. “I’m really sorry you had to hear that, and the language, Mrs. Rogers.”

Sarah sighed. “It’s not like I don’t know some of the trouble you two get up to. But I’d like to ask you something, James, and I need you to be honest with me.” James’s eyes went to the door, showing his concern. “And don’t worry about Steven. As long as we’re not too loud, he can’t hear us.” She tapped her left ear to remind him of her son’s bad hearing.

James nodded.

“Okay, then, James. How many times?”

His eyes grew wide, but this charming young beta with the gift of Blarney knew how to hide his panic.

“How many times...what, ma’am? If you’re asking how many times we’ve fought in our lives, well, I think I lost count a few years back.” She watched his eyes roving around uselessly, seeking escape.

“How many times have you asked my son to bond with you?” she asked with a harder edge.

“A...few.”

She waited, allowing her eyebrows to rise. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“More than five? Probably less than ten. Once or twice a month since I talked with you in January.”

Sarah let out the breath she’d been holding.

“God bless your stubborn heart, Jamie.” She put a hand on his cheek. He smiled, happy for her approval, but she didn’t want to give him the wrong impression, so she set her mouth stern and continued. “And my son, I love him to death, but he’s just as stubborn as you are. Now, I know you understand that, more than anyone. But I want you to understand, I love _you_ to death, too, y’hear? So you’re not allowed to hurt yourself over him, and I want you to promise me —”

James opened his mouth to protest, but she covered his mouth for him.

“— ah, ah, no, I want you to _promise_ me that you’re only going to ask him one more time, and then you stop. I don’t want you hurting yourself, and if you keep on at it like this, you might both come out the worse for the wear. If he says no one more time, you have to move on. Understood?”

His brows drew together, and his stormy eyes darkened with rebellion, but after a moment, he nodded. She dropped her hand, and he said, “Yes, ma’am. I promise. I’ll just have to get it right next time, then.”

She gave him another smile, but she felt it fade slowly as she considered him. So strong, hale, and whole. She dusted some lint off his shoulder.

“I know this won’t be easy for you, dear, but sometimes the only way to move forward is to stop holding onto the past.” When her words didn’t register in his eyes, and he only frowned at her more deeply, she continued, “What I mean is that you might have to stop thinking of Steven as your pal, your best friend.”

Bucky reared back out of her hands and gave her a look of such hurt and betrayal that she may as well have slapped him. “How could you say — I thought you —” He shook his head firmly. “Sorry, Mrs. Rogers, but nothin’ doin’. I promised what I could, but you can’t make me promise that.”

He turned and strode away as fast as he could without outright running, his feet pounding loudly on the stairs.

“James! James, that’s not what I meant!” she called after him, but he didn’t pause or even acknowledge her words.

Sarah huffed and smoothed down her apron. She’d have to talk to Winnie, maybe see if her friend could offer James a word of advice, if only Sarah could find the time. “Good Lord keep and preserve me from Irish tempers,” she prayed quietly before going back inside.

Her son was just where she’d left him, quietly picking at the placemat in the center of their small dining table. She hoped he was starting to cool his head. Sarah walked over to lean against the kitchen partition, looking down at her boy. She considered him for a bit, watching his hunched shoulders and automatically scanning her eyes over his knuckles for any signs of new cuts.

“Are you going out tonight?” she asked.

His eyes darted up at her for barely a moment before they returned to the placemat, giving her very little except a view of his blond hair and one red-flushed ear.

“Nah, don’t feel like it. Plus Mr. Lowenstein needs an extra cartoon and two ads drawn up for the daily, so I’ll work on those tonight.”

Sarah felt one of the knots of tension in her shoulders release. Thank goodness for unexpected blessings. With her missing a shift today, Steven getting extra work from the paper helped cover the loss.

“Remind me to make an extra soda bread for him when I bake this weekend, won’t you?”

Steven nodded. “Sure thing, ma.”

She pushed away from the wall, closed the window to shut out the cold, and then walked into the kitchen to stir the creamed chipped beef. From that angle, with the dining table just to the side of the tiny kitchen, she could better see Steven’s downturned face and the pout he had on it. She watched him carefully as she turned the wooden spoon through their dinner.

“So,” she said, “James has been asking you to bond.”

The pout turned into an outright sulk. “Over and over. And I keep telling him no.”

“Why?”

Her single, quiet word shuddered through him with a visible reaction.

He shrugged, and the bitter smell of unhappy alpha drifted off him. “Don’t want to bond with him.”

 _Saints above, give me the patience for this,_ she thought. “Don’t you lie to me, young man. I still remember the day you came home after meeting James. You walked in with a cloud of happy all over you, and the first thing you said to me, around that split mouth of yours, was that you’d met your beta, and you were going to bond with him some day.”

A lopsided, sour smile appeared on Steven’s face. “Well, I guess I grew up some since then, learned a little. Bucky deserves a lot better than me,” he said while staring out the window.

Sarah slammed her spoon down on the kitchen counter and bit her knuckle to hold back the growl she wanted to throw in her son’s face. She took one deep breath, then two, before looking at Steven and showing him every ounce of anger she was feeling.

“Steven Grant Rogers, sometimes I don’t know what I did wrong raising you that you are so determined to run _toward_ anyone who wants to hurt you but _away_ from anyone who’s tryin’ to show you even the tiniest bit of affection.”

She saw the shock on his slackened face. She almost never raised her voice like that. The shock lasted only a moment, though, before his jaw set hard, ready to fight back. However, she’d had enough for the day and didn’t want any more, so she stripped off her apron, dumping it on the counter.

“Dinner’s ready. You can make your own toast.”

“Ma, I —” She met his eyes, and whatever he saw in her made him stop mid-sentence.

“Not. Now.”

Sarah walked out of the kitchen, down the narrow hall, and into her bedroom. She shut the door with nothing more than quiet _thwick_ of the latch.

Carefully, feeling as though she might break with every step, she walked over to the bed and sat down on it. She picked up her pillow and, clutching it to her chest, she buried her face into it and let out a long, quiet moan into the top of it, letting it take all her frustration, anger, and sadness.

Her boy. Her beautiful, braver-than-a-lion, sick little alpha. She wanted so much for him, and she couldn’t give him one lick of anything. Brigid’s cross, but she’d wrap James up and put a bow on him if only Steven would accept. But Steven was so caught up in being mad at his lot in life that he couldn’t let the world give him anything good. Had she taught him to be that way? How? Was it something she’d said, something he’d seen her do? Was it because she refused to let Winnie help with the mending? Because she was hardly ever home? Because she...

...because she wasn’t enough, all on her own?

Sarah raised her left hand to her neck, just under her left ear, cupping over her mating mark. And for the first time in a decade, maybe more, she let herself (quietly, oh-so-quietly) whine out a mate call to her dead bondmate, her alpha.

No answer came. She called again, her throat burning.

No answer, but the tears came. She sank onto her side on the bed and let them come.

So Sarah cried, cried as quietly as she could into the pillow, cried so hard and held it down so quiet that it made her cough and sniffle. She cried, not for her son, but for herself.

 

* * *

 

She must have fallen asleep for a short while because sometime later a knock at the door woke her. She lifted her head and saw from the faded light that the sun was going down. Sleeping at an awkward angle had also given her a crick in her neck.

“Ma? Ma, I’m sorry about earlier.” A pause. “I held off on dinner, warmed it up again. Got the toast ready and set the table. If you’d like to eat?”

A peace offering.

“I’ll be right there.” Peace offering accepted. “Just give me a minute to wash up.”

“Okay, good. That’s good.”

His retreating footsteps made a soft _tap tap tap_ across the wooden floor. She rose from the bed and stretched hard enough to make her joints pop, and she went to the basin of water on her dresser to clean her face and hands, hoping to hide the fact that she’d been crying.

Sarah never noticed the two tiny specks of red left behind on the edge of the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore Sarah Rogers a bit. I've seen her in some stories here and there, but only rarely. I feel as though she must have been pretty incredible. 
> 
> Title is from a quote by Tom Hardy: "She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises."
> 
> This is the end of this short story, but for the "missing" scene between Steve and Bucky, see Chapter 2. :) 
> 
> [LuckyDragon10 on Tumblr](https://luckydragon10.tumblr.com)


	2. Extra Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The discussion as it occurs between Steve and Bucky before they arrive at the Rogers household.

“It’s bondmate night at the dance hall tonight,” Bucky said. “Bonded pairs and triads get in free if they wear matching colors.”

Steve stiffened as he walked. He had a feeling he knew where Bucky wanted to go with this. “Yeah?” he said. “Gonna go try ‘n’ see whether a couple ladies will take you home?”

Bucky quirked a half smile at him. “Could do, but I’d rather show up with a bondmate.”

Steve compressed his lips and stared straight ahead as they walked. “I’m not bonding with you for a free night dancin’, Buck.”

Bucky jogged a few steps ahead of him and turned around, walking backwards, a winsome smile on his lips and a sharp challenge in his blue eyes. “Okay, so, bond with me for whatever other reason you want, and let’s go.”

Steve glanced around at the other folks on the street. He wanted to raise his voice but kept his tone even. “Told ya already, I ain’t bondin’ with ya.”

Bucky stopped walking backwards and stared at Steve, consternation all over his face. Steve shoved past the taller man, trudging on toward home. He turned the corner and caught sight of the tenement building where he lived with his mother.

Behind him, Bucky pivoted and used his long legs to catch back up with Steve. “Well, why _not_ bond with me? We’re together all the time any way — it would hardly change a thing. ”

Steve shoved his hand through his hair. “I thought we talked about this already, Buck. Told ya why not.” A frustrated growl started tickling in chest.

“Did you, now? All I heard was some yammering about health and doctors and you being a dunce with the dames.” Bucky gave an exaggerated shrug. “Which, okay, I’ll give you that, you’re a dunce. But I still can’t see any way any of that means we can’t bond.”

Steve stomped up the stairs to get to his apartment. “Then go get your ears cleaned out. In fact, go get your whole head cleaned out and start thinking straight.”

“I am thinking straight.” Bucky gave him an outright beta growl. “It’s you with your bullshit excuses that can’t put two ‘n’ two together.”

Steve turned just outside his door and matched his friend growl for growl. “They ain’t bullshit, an’ you know it. Bad enough all the charity you do for me and ma as it is, I mean, if we were bonded and I couldn’t —”

“Charity?” A fresh rumble rolled through Bucky’s chest, a sound like being startled and horrified and angry at the same time. “When the hell has there ever been charity? We ain’t neither of us rich, ya great mook.”

Steve looked over Bucky’s shoulder at the curious neighbor beta slowly making his way to his apartment while giving them intrusive glances.

“Look, not out here,” Steve said with a half-hearted growl, and he fumbled to get his key. Bucky, without hesitating, got the spare from under the loose brick left lying around.

The neighbor disappeared inside his home while Steve fussed with the lock.

“If you won’t listen to me, I don’t know how I can make you understand, Buck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed to write this snippet out for myself to figure out exactly what the boys had said before they entered the house, and I couldn't help but want to share it as well.
> 
>  
> 
> [LuckyDragon10 on Tumblr](https://luckydragon10.tumblr.com)


End file.
